


i've been ghosting, i've been ghosting along

by fluorescencx



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: M/M, Neil Josten as Nathaniel Wesninski, Obsessive Behavior, Possessive Behavior, Raven Neil Josten, Ravens, The Perfect Court (All For The Game), This Fic is Problematic, Unhealthy Relationships, i give riko more redemption than he probably deserves, like really problematic, riko is kind of soft???, this fic literally came to me in a dream i take no responsibility for my subconscious, this is a niche guilty pleasure fic that’s it, you will get exactly what you'd expect looking at the ship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:47:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25598284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fluorescencx/pseuds/fluorescencx
Summary: Riko said, “I want to kill your father,” and Neil looked at him carefully. Riko Moriyama never said a lie twice.
Relationships: Neil Josten/Riko Moriyama
Comments: 18
Kudos: 145





	i've been ghosting, i've been ghosting along

**Author's Note:**

> i think i wrote this while possessed

I

The only time Neil was scared of Riko was when there was a blade in his hand. His punches were easy enough to take—hard, brutal, but nothing more than knuckles on skin. A bruise, surely, but bruises don’t scar. He was unafraid of his racquet because the worst damage a racquet can do is a broken bone and Riko wouldn’t risk him being forced off the court. Cuts he could play through—just a burn when he twisted his torso or a rip when he lifted his arm too high, but Riko never cut so far as to require stitching up. Riko’s games were sharp and tasted like stale copper, but they were not fatal.

Still, the sight of Riko with a blade in his hand sent Neil spiraling, every time. 

Bleeding couldn’t stop Neil’s mouth from running though, nor could it quell his temper. Still he hissed scathing retorts at Riko’s comments or met him halfway across the court when he raised a fist; still Neil met his eyes unflinching every moment that was not locked in his bedroom at night, lying on Kevin’s bed with the glint of silver tickling the corner of his vision.

This infuriated Riko. Neil took his pleasure where he could.

But while Riko craved Neil’s fear like a drug he let no one else touch him. On the Exy court he made allowances, but the moment a hit seemed a bit too personal or someone dared to twitch a finger in Neil’s direction in the locker room he was on them. Riko was proud of his #4, found like a sitting duck in Arizona and unable to escape their grasp. He was proud to say he was the only thing keeping Neil safe from his father, smug to know that Neil had nowhere to go and nothing to do but _stay._ Riko was possessive and protective and craved the taste of Neil’s fear on his tongue, and Neil loathed it.

One day Neil’s tongue carried a bit too far around a bit too much company, spitting poison about Riko’s father and this cult he called an Exy team, and that was it.

“Out!” he screamed, directed at every person in the room but Neil. “Leave!”

And they did, scrambling to gather their things and get out of Riko’s eyesight before his wrath turned from Neil to them in their incompetence.

“Why,” Riko ground out, approaching Neil slowly, “do you insist on challenging me like this? Why are you so intent on making me hurt you?”

“You can’t hurt me,” Neil spit. “You’re a child.”

“You fear me!” Riko broke, voice hoarse and deafening and yes- terrifying, but still Neil didn’t budge. 

“I fear no one but my father,” he said lowly, and Riko stopped to stand just in front of him, “and when you hold a blade you look like him. There is nothing more and nothing less.”

The few inches height difference felt like miles. The few inches between them felt nonexistent. Riko’s eyes burned and burned. “I will not profit off of your father’s torture.”

Neil shrugged, taking a step back, and Riko didn’t follow. “Then I guess you’re shit out of luck.”

Riko- Riko wanted to own Neil, more deeply than he wanted to own Kevin or Jean, for some reason Neil couldn’t rationalize. Maybe Kevin and Jean felt too much like other’s property after he’d been owned beside them for too long, or perhaps their old blood simply held less appeal, but Riko’s obsession did not extend past Neil. It was Neil he wanted, Neil he wanted to catch the screams of on his tongue, Neil he wanted to call him _master._ It was the rush of it, the thrill of it, that kept him at Neil’s bedside, trying to turn Neil’s old scars into his new.

One night he knelt beside Neil on the bed, already well past the hour they should have slept if they didn’t want to pass out on court tomorrow. He looked at Neil thoughtfully, no blade in hand. Neil looked back silently, bemused but not fearful; he did not fear unless there was a knife in Riko’s palm. The man knew that, and yet he didn’t hold one in his hand to twirl idly, just to have it in sight, just to keep Neil compliant. He simply studied Neil like a puzzle he was intent on solving.

“I want to possess you,” he said, and the words were so soft Neil could almost call them gentle.

“I know,” Neil murmured into the soft light.

“You make it extremely difficult.”

Neil’s lip twitched at the corner. “I know.”

“I want to kill your father,” Riko said, delivered with no more intensity than one might use to inform someone of the weather, but Neil knew that didn’t make it any less truthful. This was news to him.

He tilted his head. “Why’s that?”

“For getting to you first,” Riko sighed, almost wistfully. “I can’t scar you without your father taking half shares.”

“You could try something other than a knife,” Neil suggested wryly, and Riko’s eyes narrowed.

“Nothing else is effective—you’ve made sure of that.”

Neil shrugged as if to say, _You got me there,_ and responded no further.

“What are you afraid of?” Riko whispered.

“My father,” Neil answered without hesitation.

“What else,” Riko pushed. You survived for eight years on survival instincts alone—surely there’s more. What fear kept you alive? What was it?”

Neil chewed on his lip thoughtfully. Here, in the dim lighting of Riko’s room and the other man’s face cast half in shadow, he almost felt… comfortable. The most comfortable he’d felt anywhere in the Nest, anyway. Riko was a familiar evil. “Being known,” he answered finally. “Being recognized.”

“That’s obvious,” Riko dismissed, “and still a by-product of your father’s fear. What else?”

Neil dug through his brain, searching. What had he been afraid of? What fear kept him alive? He let out a soft _oh_ at the realization and Riko’s eyes narrowed, fingers twitching at the sound.

“Attachment,” Neil said finally, eyes straying past Riko. “Finding anything that would eventually be painful to leave.”

Riko hummed. “That’s better,” he murmured thoughtfully. “Did you ever fail?”

“No,” Neil said immediately, and it was truth, “never. Not since my mother died.” Riko was quiet, and Neil continued, bitterness encroaching on his tone. “I burned her, you know. On the beach. Lit up the car like a god damn bonfire and watched, then chucked our burners and buried her bones like a fucking pet in the backyard.”

“Scared of fire?” Riko asked, pouncing.

Neil smiled wryly. “Not fire,” he said. “Just ghosts.”

_Ghosts. My mother’s, my father’s. My own, maybe._

“How do I become more than a _ghost,_ ” Riko asked, gaze locked back onto Neil’s intently. “I don’t want a second-hand toy, Nathaniel. I want you.”

Neil sighed, turning back to Riko heavily, because nothing he could say now would make the man happy. “If you don’t want to be a ghost you can’t prey on my fear anymore; all of my fear belongs to ghosts. You’ll have to find something else.”

Riko pursed his lips, flattening out into two flat white lines and his furrowed, frustrated brow. “I do not know anything else,” he admitted quietly, and it sounded like repentance.

Neil said nothing, only looked and looked and looked at Riko. Then he whispered, “I know,” because it was truth.

Riko stopped cutting Neil.

He didn’t hold back from the usual fists flying at practice or nasty words or bruises, that would be entirely too much to ask for, but this was, at least, equal treatment to the rest of the Ravens. No one was kind on this team. The closest thing Neil had to a friend—an _alliance_ —was Jean, and even that was nothing more than precariously stitched loyalty in the name of self-preservation. Riko still made Neil sleep in Kevin’s bed and Kevin in Neil’s, he still sat there late into the night, both men’s eyes open but neglecting to speak, but Neil didn’t see a blade again after that night. Riko just… looked at him. Contemplative and inquiring. Neil could never figure out what it was the man so badly wanted to ask.

Until he asked.

“Have you ever been in love, Nathaniel?” he said one night already an hour into their silence. It was unexpected enough to make Neil jump before he pushed himself up to prop his elbows behind him, eyeing Riko suspiciously.

“No,” he said shortly. 

Riko tilted his head. “Why?”

“Because I’m not real,” he said simply, “and I told you—attachment. My mother ground it into me from the moment we ran that attraction and emotions are curses to the wanted. I couldn’t afford to _look_ at anyone for too long, let alone associate with them long enough to develop feelings.”

“So you’ve never been interested in anyone?”

“Never.”

“Never kissed anyone?”

Neil shrugged. “A girl or two, but my mother beat me into next week and it didn’t feel like much of anything anyway, so the consequences didn’t seem worth the reward.”

Riko drummed his fingers across his thigh thoughtfully. “Were you ever lonely, Nathaniel?”

Neil looked at him for a long time. “No,” he said, because it was truth.

Time passed. By the next time Riko asked Neil anything at all every open wound he left had healed over with fresh skin. For a few weeks Riko dismissed Neil back to his own room, his own bed beside Jean. Jean never asked, although Neil could tell he desperately wanted to. How did Neil manage to escape Riko’s attachment? How did he escape his nightly punishments? Why was his skin marred now only with bruises?

Neil didn’t tell him, almost entirely because he didn’t have an answer.

By the first game of the season Neil had improved tremendously from the time of his arrival, and Riko pushed incessantly to get him on the court. No one really understood _why,_ but the accepted explanation was that Riko wanted to see Neil get knocked around, roughed up a bit by a team that wasn’t theirs. Riko, everyone assumed, still wanted to watch Neil suffer. 

But Neil didn’t. Neil hardly took a hit the entire game, and he played well when he was on the line. The coach’s criticisms were far less vicious than Neil was accustomed to, but they’d hammered the other team into the ground too easily for anyone to be truly upset. No one knew what to make of Neil. No one knew what to make of Riko’s hand brushed against the small of his back on his way off the court, Riko’s breath against Neil’s ear, Riko’s whispered words that only Neil really heard, _Well done._

Riko was proud of his #4. Fiercely. Neil knew nothing except that it wouldn’t bode well for him.

That night he called Neil to his room. Jean looked at him pityingly but said nothing, and Neil knew he was preparing himself to see Neil return bloody. Neil was quiet.

There were no knives. Only Neil’s bare, healed chest and Riko’s scrutinizing gaze. Only quiet. Then.

“Nathaniel,” Riko said to draw his attention. He pressed his index finger against Neil’s bullet wound. “Where did this come from?”

“Seattle,” Neil responded. “The fight that killed my mother. I was shot there.”

“Those weren’t our men.”

“I know. You didn’t want us dead.”

“But the Butcher did?”

Neil swallowed. Looked away. “More than anything.”

Riko said, “I want to kill your father,” and Neil looked at him carefully. Riko Moriyama never said a lie twice.

“Why’s that?” Neil asked, just as he did before.

“For not killing you before I found you.”

Neil’s lips quirked up at the corners. Just a bit. “Careful. You’ll hurt my feelings.”

Riko’s fingers twitched where they rested on his knee. “I want to possess you,” he said, and his face looked war-torn.

Life at the nest carried on with little change, except that Riko began to touch him. It was a brush of fingertips against his neck, a knee pressed firmly against his, an ankle rubbing against his under the table. It was fingertips trailed maddeningly against the back of Neil’s hand.

Riko stopped hitting him.

Neil hated it, hated that he couldn’t decide whether this was better or worse than bruises, and Riko _knew,_ so he continued. There were no nights in Kevin’s bed, just ghosting fingertips and brushed skin and Neil unable to take it, unable to swallow in Riko’s presence, unable to meet his gaze with no fathomable idea why.

They slaughtered match two just as thoroughly as they had the last, and this time it was a squeeze against his hip, the same murmured _Well done,_ a dropping in his stomach at having been touched so blatantly in front of the rest of the Ravens. In front of an entire stadium. He felt every set of thousands of eyes on his back, beady black things like vultures ready to pick at him, like panthers ready to pounce at the weakness. Riko only grinned wickedly and carried on, slapping Kevin on the back on his way off the court, never looking back at Neil. It took him several tries to move.

He decided then that this was worse than bruises.

A few days later a freshman swung at Neil at the end of practice and Riko put a knife to his throat. Neil watched as the kid shook and shivered and couldn’t dredge up any sympathy, and when Riko finally turned away the kid scurried off the court after the rest of the team, leaving the two there alone.

“Want to tell me what that was about?” Neil asked flatly, not moving either toward or away from Riko.

Riko shrugged, stashing the knife somewhere out of sight as Neil looked on, unimpressed. “I own you,” he reminded. “I don’t tolerate people touching my things.”

There were about a dozen places Neil could start with rebuking that statement, so he decided not to bother at all. “You hardly touch me lately, anyway. It’s about time I carried some bruises.”

Riko narrowed his eyes dangerously. Neil wasn’t afraid of him, never had been. “I prefer you without bruises.”

“That’s new,” Neil responded wryly, making to pass him on his way out of the court, but Riko’s hand caught his arm on his way past, too tight to leave room for argument.

“Tonight,” he breathed, and Neil’s shudder was entirely instinctive. He nodded anyway.

That night, Neil sat propped up against the headboard, only a foot or two of distance separating him from Riko. For the first time, save for that singular finger against his bullet wound, Riko reached for him without a blade. He trailed fingers up and down Neil’s chest, tracing the ridges of his marred skin. He stopped here and there. _This one? Cleaver. One of his nastier choices, but he loved it. This one? A brand. Pulled right out of the fire._

Then Riko leaned in and brushed his lips against Neil’s bullet wound. Neil’s fist caught Riko’s nose with a satisfying crunch and Riko reeled back but didn’t retaliate. He brushed a thumb under his nose and pulled it back to eye the blood. His eyes snapped back to Neil’s, dark and lethal, and he reached forward painstakingly slowly. Neil tensed just slightly, but Riko did nothing but rub his thumb over Neil’s cheekbone, smearing the blood across it like battle paint.

Then he smiled. It was a wicked, dangerous thing. 

“You’re afraid,” he whispered, and Neil closed his eyes painfully. “Do I look like your father, Nathaniel?” When Neil didn’t respond he snatched at his wrist and held it tightly enough to bruise. “Answer,” he demanded.

“No,” Neil bit out.

“No,” Riko hummed like a song, and when Neil opened his eyes he was still smiling. He leaned toward Neil, eyes never straying, until they were no more than a breath apart. Neil couldn’t move, didn’t dare to. Riko’s blood was dripping from his upper lip and Neil’s stomach twisted just looking at it. Riko was smiling, smiling. “Are you afraid?”

When Neil’s gaze didn’t stray from his bloody teeth Riko gripped his chin, pulling his face up and forcing his eyes onto him. “Yes,” Neil whispered, because it was truth.

“Yes,” Riko repeated softly. Like a prayer. Like a hymn. He said the word like it tasted sweet on his tongue. Riko swiped his thumb against his own lower lip and then reached forward to do the same to Neil, rubbing the blood across his mouth. Neil flicked his tongue out almost without thinking about it, tasted copper. “What are you afraid of, Nathaniel?” Riko asked him.

Neil felt dazed. “You.”

The next time he tasted copper Riko was pushing it into his mouth with his tongue.

II

“Call me master.”

A moan, gritted teeth. “No.”

Tightening fingers, a harder tug. There were lips against his jaw and Neil was coming undone. “Call me master.”

“No.” A stuttered gasp of air. “ _Shit._ ”

Riko’s body was hovering above his. He caught Neil’s bottom lip between his teeth and _bit,_ copper spilling over Neil’s tongue and it tasting like redemption. “ _Say my name._ ”

“Riko,” Neil gasped, and that was it.

“Again.”

Babbles. Incoherent. “ _Riko Riko Riko Riko-_ ”

 **.** **.** **.**

“What are you afraid of?”

Neil was sticky from top to bottom, sweat and semen and tears. He was going to be dead on the field tomorrow, but Riko was lying next to him and his fingers were trailing idly up and down Neil’s chest and he couldn’t bring himself to care too much. Save it for the morning after.

“Ghosts,” Neil answered.

“And?”

“You.”

“Why’s that?”

Neil dragged his eyes open to study Riko. His mean jaw and sharp eyes and _#1_. His eyes looked softer when they were like this, but Neil could have been imagining it. Could have been wishful thinking. “You would be painful to leave.”

“So don’t,” Riko said simply, and rolled to prop himself over Neil’s body. His hair was a bit too long, hanging forward to brush Neil’s cheekbones. Then it was his lips brushing Neil’s cheekbones, and his jaw, the shell of his ear and his collarbones. A tongue darting out to trace Neil’s scars like a line of fire.

“He knows I’m here. He’ll want me back.”

“He can’t take you.”

“Why?”

Riko rose to kiss Neil, a rough thing, jagged around the edges. “Because I own you.”

Riko said it simply, like a fact, like it was the answer to everything. Maybe- maybe it was. Neil had long since given up explaining the flaws of the statement to Riko, only because Riko could never understand even if he tried to listen. Riko didn’t know love or affection—only ownership, only possession. Maybe he loved Neil, maybe that was possible, but he’d never know. He only knew a desperate, primal need to claim. Neil was _Riko’s,_ and it was as simple as that. That was the beginning and end of every conclusion Riko would ever draw.

“He could try,” Neil said anyway.

“My family owns your father, and I own you. If he becomes a nuisance I’ll kill him. I’ll do what needs to be done.” Neil could see Riko’s eyes flare at the thought of it, the thought of anyone trying to pry Neil from his grasp, and Riko’s fingernails dug into the skin of his hips. Neil didn’t bother prying them off, just bucked his hips feebly until Riko came back to him.

He did eventually, eyes straying back down to Neil’s and lips tilting up at the corners. It wasn’t a kind smile—none of Riko’s smiles were kind—but it was a softer thing, more worn, that any that he gave to others. Neil smiled back, eyes heavy.

Riko brought his mouth down to nip at Neil’s _#4_ and Neil arched his back weakly into Riko. Riko hushed him, petting his hands down Neil’s chest once more. “Go to sleep,” he said, and Neil didn’t bother with being contrary. He settled down.

“I need a shower,” he sniffed, and Riko snickered.

“I quite like you this way.”

“ _F_ _uck off,_ ” Neil sighed, but did nothing when Riko continued to run his fingers through Neil’s hair. Riko called his hair copper—copper like blood. Neil thought Riko liked the comparison more than he strictly should.

“ _Sleep,_ ” Riko said again, more of a command in his tone now, and Neil did.

 **.** **.** **.**

“Call me master.”

“Say it again and I’ll knock out your teeth.”

“Call me master.”

Any retort Neil might have given was lost as Riko eased into him, knocking the breath out of Neil’s lungs. He threw his head back, choking on a sound in the back of his throat. Riko’s hand tugged warningly at Neil’s hair. He didn’t like when Neil tried to be quiet, nevermind that they were surrounded by other dorms of sleeping Ravens. _So let them hear you cry. Let them know I’m dragging it out of you._

“ _Riko Riko Riko,_ ” Neil chanted, half-sigh and half-moan.

“Nathaniel,” Riko hummed into his ear, and Neil melted. “Say it.”

“ _Fuck off._ ”

Riko pounded his prostate mercilessly and Neil sobbed. “Say it.”

“ _No no no please Riko please Riko let me-_ ”

“Say it.”

“ _No!_ ”

Riko sighed exaggeratedly, nosing against Neil’s neck. “Then beg.”

So Neil did.

 **.** **.** **.**

“I want to kill your father.”

Neil traced the planes of his face with his fingertips, brushing over the jut of his cheekbones and the hollow of his jaw and the soft pad of his lips. He traced the bridge of Riko’s nose, over his eyebrows, across his eyelids. Fingers ghosting. He said, “I know,” because it was truth.

“If I had the chance would you let me?”

It wasn’t a question, not really. If Riko had the chance he wouldn’t so much as glance at Neil. He didn’t need Neil’s blessing, didn’t even want it. Neil knew this. He was curious. Inquiring.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Neil looked at Riko for a long time. His fingers continued. Ghosting, ghosting. “I’m in love with you.”

It wasn’t an answer.

Riko said, “I know.” 

It was truth.

III

Neil never thought his father would die, not really. The Butcher seemed invincible.

In the end he was murdered because he came looking for Neil, asking for him back when he’d been the one to sell him off almost a decade ago. It was his meddling, his inability to hear the word _no,_ his temper, that killed him. The Moriyamas shot clean through his head without blinking and let Neil watch. 

He thought he would feel some sick sense of satisfaction, maybe some sadness, relief— _anything,_ but Neil felt nothing at all. He watched on impassively with Riko, Kevin, and Jean in a line beside him. The big four. Neil’s father was a demonstration, a display of how trapped they were here, their tattooed cheekbones a brand deeper than any scar. Kevin looked like he might throw up. Jean’s face was flat. Riko looked like Christmas morning.

Neil felt nothing at all.

“I wanted to kill him,” Riko told him later, lying in bed, both of them stripped bare in the dark. Kevin and Neil had long since traded partners. “I even asked, but they told me no.”

“They at least let you cut into him first?” Neil asked, only half joking. Riko tugged at his hair and he laughed. It was a strange sound to hear from his own mouth only hours after watching his father’s execution, but he felt no strong urge to muffle it.

“No,” Riko said mulishly. 

“A shame.”

Riko tugged at Neil’s hair again, this time to angle his face up for a kiss. Neil complied easily, sighing into his mouth. “I’ve never…” Riko swallowed thickly, pulling off of Neil. “I’ve never been loved.” Neil stayed quiet, watching Riko. He already knew this to be true. “Don’t really know what it means, even, but-” He cut off. 

“Yes?” Neil prompted.

“I think I understand.”

Neil’s heart jumped into his throat. “Say it,” he ordered softly. _Call me master._ Riko’s mouth curled up into a sneer before he straightened it, looking everywhere in the room but at Neil. Neil raised his hand to pinch Riko’s chin, bringing his gaze back to him. “Say it,” he repeated.

“I love you,” Riko said finally, and it sounded like rebirth.

Neil swallowed. Raised his second hand to cup Riko’s cheek. Ghosting.

“Say it again,” he ordered, because Riko Moriyama never said a lie twice.


End file.
